Navel gazing in Colorado Springs
According to Military.com, thirty leaders from across the services have gathered to “clean up misconduct in the ranks”;
Ethics officers and others identified a key issue as a lack of trust in leadership.
“How do we get them to trust us?” Navy Capt. Scott Smith asked to kick off the two-day Department of Defense Professionalism Summit.
Rear Adm. Peg Klein said that by bringing 30 leaders from across the military together, the Pentagon wanted to cross-pollinate budding efforts to strengthen ethics from each of the services.
[…]
There are signs of progress, though, Klein said. The admiral cited the Army and the Marine Corps for their work. The Army has started an effort to train enlisted leaders to spot and stamp out bad behavior with the online “Not in My Squad” program.
The Army program uses videos and virtual reality to put young leaders in an environment to make tough choices and learn from mistakes.
Well, see, there’s the problem, right there. The misbehavior, given what we’ve read in the news is with field grade and flag officers, mostly in the O-6 ranks – not with junior leaders. Given what’s been in the news the last few years,
I fully expect to read about misconduct at this conference in the coming months. That’s what happens when those people get together, right?
That’s across all services. To punish the junior leaders with endless hours of training videos and practical application scenarios isn’t going to influence their senior leaders. And it’s certainly not going to help the junior gain trust in senior leadership. The problem goes beyond training. You can’t train someone who is forty years old to recognize sexual assault as bad, that’s a problem of a lack of character if they don’t know that sexual assault of a subordinate is wrong. It’s a lack of proper upbringing. If you tell a bunch of privates on their first day in basic training not to do it, they won’t – except for the ones who aren’t wired properly before they joined the military. Somehow that doesn’t work on many field grade officers. That’s the problem those 30 officers in Colorado Springs need to focus on, not on brain cell-killing PowerPoint presentations for junior leaders.
Category: Big Pentagon
30, huh? That’s quite a daisy chain. Hey don’t blame me. The report says they are meeting to cross pollinate.
That’s what gets most of the senior officers in trouble…
Keep your pollinator in your pants!
Best summary of the problem I’ve seen. Now how do we get this feedback to the flags?
Joint Service Centipede.
“How do we get them to trust us?”
First, grow a spine. Second, stand up on your hind legs. Third, tell the Perfumed Princes in the Five Sided Puzzle Palace, and the MomJeans-In-Chief, to go take a flying fuck at a rolling doughnut, and let you do your job, which is, to train and lead your troops to do their primary mission, to wit, close with and kill the enemy and break their toys into itty bitty pieces.
“Continue until the rubble bounces.”
Hey, a guy can dream, can’t he?
DOD Professionalism Summit… Shrinking military budgets but there is always funds for BULLSHIT!!
I’d like to see how much money is wasted and a tally of the hours in the DoD and Federal government spent satisfying just the pile of annual mandatory training.
I’ve got over 35 years of service and the pile has only gotten larger and more time consuming in that period.
SARC that hamster wheel has only gotten bigger and harder to rotate.
Amen.
While I was writing about this, I kept remembering the South Park episode where the priests were discussing why the children were reporting their sexual abuse. You know, instead of discussing them ending their bad behavior.
We must ask the Holy Spider!
(Almost as good as the episode where they determine who gets a bailout by cutting the head off a chicken and watching to see where it falls over dead)
Correct me if the data in my brain housing group is dated, but aren’t most of these problems on the “O” ranks? I seem to remember with Tailhook that it was an “O” problem and a lot of “O” heads rolled over it.
And I remember the Navy wide asschewings that happened afterwards, too. Guy Named Boorda flew all the way out Sigonella to deliver an all hands asschewing. My aircraft didn’t even HAVE a tailhook. Classic case of the many shall suffer for the sins of the few.
And yet when all the harassment training came down to the deckplate level, nary a khaki was to be found, just a bunch of “YFG” videos on how bad we are.
I dunno, maybe that whole “lead by example” thingy should have actually been used as something other than a punchline.
Soon after that whole debacle; I remember my squadron having to go to the NAS Cecil Field Chow Hall to sit through 8 hours of bullshit that my Mom and Dad taught me during the first 18 years of existence…not one Zero was in attendance and those fuckers had tailhooks.
I heard that later on that the woman who made all those claims was found to be lying. If true, she should have been keelhauled.
I am tired of having to adapt my professional behavior to fit the wants and wishes of a bunch of fucking children. When I first came in, the old guys never gave a rats ass what or how I felt; there was a right way and a wrong way.
BLUF is that kids coming in need to adapt to the way the US military has done things for 200+ years, we don’t need to adjust to them. Senior leaders, set the example. Lead, follow or get the hell out.
How do we get them to trust us?
You might start by NOT convening for self-congratulatory conferences such as this one. Then, you really should consider identifying the problems you wish to solve and addressing those instead of subjecting the enlisted force to additional floggings for problems that others are perpetuating and that those same enlisted folks are powerless to resolve.
Get back to us for more suggestions after you do that. Until you look yourselves honestly in the mirror, the rest of us seriously cannot be bothered with your questions or much of anything else you have to offer.
Exactly. This is a classic dog and pony show. To be a fly on the wall for this gaggle fuck and hear what these Einsteins come up with. Nothing will come of this except more endless PowerPoint presentations and other classes to check the box. By the way, what is this colossal circle jerk costing? We don’t have any money for the A-10, but hey lets fly all these asswipes in to Colorado Springs.
I bet 1st Sgt Moerk was there with her woobie to give a soldier who couldn’t sleep because he was cold. Ganey has his military bearing, Moerk her woobie.
I was wondering if I’d have to be the one to ask if Moerk was invited to the conference. Guess not.
Would be apropos if she were there IMO. They’re meeting at the USAFA. The USAFA’s mascot is a sky-blue falcon.
Literally:
http://www.scoutforceathlete.com/media/college/university-s-air-force-academy-a55d70f2c5564e.png
There is little doubt she will be Keynote speaker
Quit trying to social engineer the military.
OUT!
Yeah, I would love to be a fly at the bar listening in on all the appropriate “split tail, ghey, racist and anti-female/male” remarks being traded by both halves of our race as they drink to their merriment and tie a good one on before the next days work!
But what do I know …
With all due respect to Tom Roeder (the author of the article), I think he missed the point.
If you look at these campaigns they are really targeted at leaders, not junior enlisted. There is a recognition that leaders (officers especially) are not living up to the level of a true professional.
In general, we have young leaders that view the military as a job, not as a profession. They don’t want to get out of work, per se, but they don’t understand that they have a greater responsibility.
The traditional view of the professional officer or non-commissioned officer, on the other hand, is that the leader is on duty 24/7, and actually looks for things to do in order to accomplish the mission.
Young officers today quite often are in it for the mid career bonus or the college money, and see a quid-pro-quo relationship with the military. On top of that, they see generals (and SGMs) that are actually abusing their positions for power and privilege. The troops see all of this, and rightfully don’t understand why they seem to be held to a higher standard of conduct.
That said, the military is a reflection of society, and one of the issues units are grappling with is that young troops come in and don’t see anything ethically or morally wrong with things like drug use, consensual sex among peers, and other conduct that would have been deemed unacceptable even to Joe a few years ago. NCOs and officers are dealing with the ‘hook up culture’ within their squads and platoons, designer drugs, and troops that honestly don’t understand why what they did over the weekend should have any bearing on their status in the unit.
I have it on good authority that Moerk’s second rat ARCOM will come from this thread’s comments.
And I’m sure she’ll wear it as a badge of honor.
Okay I am going to play the devils advocate here. For all of us who put on NCO/Petty Officer and those that were junior officers, let me ask you to search your mind and your foggy memories. Was there that one guy, who in the field was shit hot? That one guy who was the NCO that could make his unit run like a well oiled machine and always got the awesome cut scores during exercises or blew threw inspections like they were just wet paper sacks? Yet, when it came time for liberty or weekend time; who was always the first in trouble with the Senior NCOs? Was it the same guy? How about when it was time to deploy overseas or to some training det, was he the one that all the rest of the NCOs and Staff NCOs worked hard to cover for him being slightly tipsy (or even missing) at morning formation or showing up just in time for the movement formation? How about all those time he spent checking out that hot new Admin Clerk over at the Disbursing Offices? Even though you knew he was married and had kids at home, as well as a mama-san at the popular training det facility? Hell what about that one inspection he didn’t so much as blow through but rather scammed his way through with parts and gear that were “misplaced” by another unit and all the paper work seem to have a signature that no one has seen before or after? Yet, the brass couldn’t say it was wrong, but had a nagging questions about it being right as well? Yet, we could never feel right about bilging them, ratting them, or whatever you wanted because well they were nice and friendly and helped you out that one time when you were in a jam? I will admit it as an E5/PO2 in the Navy there were some folks that I knew later were ethical troubles just coming up. There was a “friend” who I didn’t realize until later was a chronic alkie and the whole… Read more »
Exactly right. This is what the services are trying to address.
when i see a general or admiral or sergeant major caught in an ethics violation I wonder if this is the first time they did something like that, or just the first time they got caught? Did they start when they made general, or has it been reinforced over the years by people looking the other way?
When I was in the Navy we used to call it the Khaki Mafia. Because the CPOS used to stand together and circle around a weaksauce leader who had problems with zippers or booze or even just violence. The sad part was I heard plenty of enabling statement from those fellow CPOs that Chief Navy was just like this since so-and-so were airmen in VF-3.14 The Fighting Pis. At which is when my mind said that time has changed and it was time to purge that screw up. At the same time the dual mouth statements from the social training about trying to help a friend or fellow servicemenber who had problems but that our leaders don’t do the same with folks they knew were in trouble.
I get it at the same time though there are folks who made one mistake, but at what point does one mistake become one top many?
In frustration, I left the following comment there (which probably won’t get published):
“So far, the ethics campaign has resulted in a series of programs, but figuring out what works remains on the to-do list.
“That’s really hard to know,” she said.”
W. T. F?!?!
How about you start reading at the following websites, you gods-be-damned Blue Falcons.
http://valorguardians.com/blog/
http://www.jqpublicblog.com/
http://havokjournal.com/
After that, turn your findings over to your replacements, and fornicate your festering pie-tunnels with acid-soaked cacti.
And this is why I cuddle my DD-214 every effin’ night.
Good list but can we also add cdrsalamander.BlogSpot.com he does magnificent work on the LCS.
Indeed, yes. And thanks for the reminder, I keep forgetting to add him to my MilBlog list.
Heh, still not published, even though I’ve re-submitted it, toned down in stages, 3 more times.
This meeting should have been held in a Afghanistan COP.
So are they gonna do a damned thing other than prance around with PowerPoint presentations and issue “Hey, look at me and what I said!” memos and more death by PowerPoint afterward?